A Matter of Guilt
by EvilFuzzy9
Summary: So runs the final confession of Yugao Uzuki, even as it was written, sealed in a letter to be opened only in the event of her death. It now remains only for the lords Hokage and Kazekage to decide what should be done in regard to the revelations herein.


**A Matter of Guilt**

A _Naruto_ oneshot

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

Rating: T

Genre: Crime/Suspense

Characters/Pairings: Yugao U., Hayate G., Baki;

Summary: So runs the final confession of Yugao Uzuki, even as it was written, sealed in a letter to be opened only in the event of her death. It now remains only for the lords Hokage and Kazekage to decide what should be done in regard to the revelations herein.

* * *

The ANBU are Konoha's elite. We are her shadowy guardians, the ones entrusted with those duties too dark and distasteful for the rest. We are unerring instruments of the Hokage, whispers of fear and silent death in the lonely watches of the night, when all is still and quiet. We are ash and soot in the eyes of our foes, and burning coals thrust down the back.

Some would call us a derelict remnant of blacker times, when good and evil seemed less distinct, when cruelty was needful to survive in a harsh world, and cold ruthlessness a fairer virtue than patience and mercy. Perhaps they would be right to say this. I cannot deny that we are out of place in this new, emerging order. There is less need for spies and assassins with the formation of the Shinobi Union, or at least for such agents as can prevail against the natural perceptions of fellow shinobi, being to ordinary ninja as those ninja are to a feudal lord's men-at-arms.

In every order of beast there is some creature which specializes in preying on members of its own kind: snakes to hunt snakes, raptors to hunt raptors, so on and so forth. That is—or was—the role of ANBU in this world of shinobi. But that role is becoming less essential with every year. The great villages are in alliance, and they have fewer secrets from each other, and fewer quarrels, tying themselves ever closer together in blood and vows. Kiri, Kumo, Suna, Iwa, Konoha; we have all become sisters and cousins and bosom companions.

What need, then, is there for those murky relics of the blood-stained past, those shinobi-killers of the ANBU, assassins to kill assassins and spies to shadow spies? They are unneeded in this modern age, an unwanted reminder of old regrets. We are becoming like dinosaurs, or else like a hoard of weapons forgotten and disused, no longer relevant to modern conflicts, and so rusting away until all that remains is dust and faded records.

For this reason, perhaps, I feel less obliged to uphold the traditional unspoken rules of my order. ANBU never tell their secrets, and while we still had a purpose and certainty of perpetuation, this was fine and preferable. Best that the darker truths of war and government never come to common knowledge. And yet, seeing how the ANBU now ages without renewal, its old soldiers put on pensions and retired from duty, one by one, with no new blood in their place, I cannot help but wonder what will become of us.

Only when something is in danger of disappearing forever do we humans really feel the need to preserve memory of it, for while it still exists it stands self-evident, a testament to itself that anyone might look upon and know. This goes as much for lives as institutions, persons as much as nations. I am growing older with every year, and while it will hopefully be decades still before my death, I cannot help but feel _conscious_ of how much of the allotted human span I've already lived.

Even if people remember my person and my deeds, I cannot help wondering how much of my inner self will be forgotten among the living once I pass on to that final sleep of the world-weary soul, and how much else will fade once those who knew me pass as well. I am not a person of historic significance. I will not be listed among the great figures of our age. Schoolchildren will not be taught the stories of my life and my works, and I have no children of my own to teach.

That, above all, is perhaps why I feel compelled to write this account. For the reason I am childless is tied bitterly close to what I mean to tell, both the cause of my actions then and of my recounting them now, here in this paper, so that once I am gone the story might be known, short and unpleasant though it be.

Those who only know _of_ me will perhaps say that I am a coldblooded, stone-hearted harridan. I am not young, nor as beautiful as I may have once been called, or so bright and hopeful as before that fateful loss. I am aging, and I am bitter as one who sees the passing of their youth and their world and all that they once knew, and the replacement or disregard of the institutions and traditions which she as a youth had held sacrosanct.

I am not a kindly woman, neither charitable nor endearing. Indeed, I daresay that I am the terror of the neighborhood children, a bogey-figure of their puerile myths and fleeting legends, a recurring villain in those such tales as the young make and share with their peers in the days of their first spring. I imagine they think I came into the world fully-formed even as I am now, and in their young minds they think me a fixture that will never vanish, for they have not yet seen the wearing of years, nor truly known the sorry cycle of inexorable loss and change, of fading and regrowth, the falling of old leaves and sprouting of new buds.

Yet I too was once young, and in those days I was filled with the joy of life, and a hope for the future that seemed unquenchable. Nothing was beyond my powers, if only I persevered, and even that shadow of death which hangs over all mortals—and most heavily over we shinobi—did not seem nearly so vast and oppressive then as now. I felt certain that my life would be a good one, whether long or short, and I did not doubt that I would leave my mark on the future, whether it be by my deeds as a kunoichi, or as a woman.

Yes, I once thought to be a bride, a wife, a mother. Those who have known me longest will not find this revelation surprising, unless perhaps for how suddenly and sharply it seems to contrast with the person I am now. For I was once young and in love, and I knew such a love as can only be known once in a lifetime, that passionate longing and rapturous bliss of oneness with a person so dear and precious as to surpass all else in one's priorities.

He was a good man, and a man indeed, our love a plain and straightforward thing that was no less valuable for its simplicity. Hayate Gekko was his name, and I cannot help but regret how few of the young will know that name. He was not the most robust or virile of his gender, perhaps, having been afflicted with a certain congenital feebleness, being sickly and wan in all the days of his too-short life. In youth he had suffered a rather severe malady, and its lasting toll could be seen in his perpetual thinness and ashen pallor.

He was an uneasy sleeper, also, and ever so acutely prone to little maladies, easily tired by exertion and slower than his peers to convalesce and recuperate. Many had doubted his fitness as a shinobi, and certainly he had to endure a greater hardship than most in his training and advancement, yet he was able to rise in the ranks alongside his peers, and time and again he proved his worth and dedication. And perhaps it was that greater mental discipline cultivated through endurance of his indispositions, that firmer will and sharper focus honed by persevering ever on the path of shinobi despite his breakdowns and relapses, that gave Hayate the qualities needed to excel in _kenjutsu_ and distinguish himself as a swordsman.

Were it not for his early demise, I do not doubt that he would have come to be counted among the greatest swordmasters of our age. Already he had been of a skill surpassing nearly all in Konoha at the time of his death, possessing a degree of aptitude that would have been uncommon even in Kumo and Kiri, where such skills are more standard. Yet that was not the cause of my love for him, unless by the way in which it made me first to respect, and eventually admire him, and come to feel warmly toward him and approach him freely, and thereby to know him and finally realize, one day, that I had fallen hopelessly and irrevocably in love.

Gladly, he felt just as strongly for myself, and indeed confessed to having nurtured an attraction to me for long years before we began any intimate acquaintance, once I told him of my feelings. So it was that in the prime of my life I was tied in heart and promise to Hayate Gekko, and he likewise committed himself to me forevermore. And we enjoyed a long courtship, as such things were measured in those days, dating for more than a couple years and continuing in our shinobi careers all the while, saving up money and getting to know each other better and closer, growing ever nearer and dearer.

Many times were we intimate, and even now I recall fondly the hours we spent together with the wind in our hair and the sun on our skin, exploring each other with that lusty verve singular to men and women in those green and hopeful years of health and beauty between new adolescence and the first declines of age, still lithe and fresh and smooth and soft.

Oh, to feel his hands on me once again, to press against him and entwine our limbs, mingling ourselves with all that wondrous indiscretion of love in youth! I would give anything to feel it again, to feel his hands now horny and calloused, his fingers rough and gnarling, hands showing through with veins, his chin hairy, perhaps, and his face wrinkled, his hair paling or thinning with age.

Were he now old and fat and baldly liverspotted, and I still as fair and nubile as a girl fresh-come into womanhood, yet I would delight to know his touch once more, to look in his eyes and see how dearly and desperately he loved me, and to behold those passions in my own eyes as they were reflected in his. Though he is now long since gone whence my living self cannot yet follow, I continue to love the memory of him as fiercely and jealously as ever I loved the man himself.

More sorrowfully, perhaps, and more wistfully, but still as truly and purely, and no less deeply.

But he is dead, and he has been dead for more years than I wish to count. To the young people of this age that might seem an exceptional thing, yet in the days of my prime that was still not rare or unheard of, though in the years of peace we had known at the time, and from the days of the older generations in those earlier, more turbulent years of the hidden villages, it had even then been much reduced from its former frequency and prevalence. And yet there are many men and women of my generation, younger or older, who can claim similar losses from the years which followed the death of my betrothed.

For Konoha, at least, the death of Hayate Gekko marked the beginning of a period of turbulence and conflict that would not completely end for several more years. His was among the first blood spilled in that last great period of strife in a now-bygone age of the world, a coldblooded murder to guard the secret of a treacherous plot, the ill-fated yet little remembered Konoha Crush, a joint operation between Sunagakure and Oto.

If there are any young people who read this, I suppose that seems a bewildering statement in many ways. For one, the bonds which now exist between the Sand and Leaf are probably closest and most solid of all those between the great villages, marked by close friendships and steady marriages at the highest levels of our governments. For another, the name of _Otogakure_ , which once had seemed poised to become a menace and a curse to Konoha for generations to come, is now obscure and little remembered, a minor footnote of modern history that few youth know and even fewer study.

Yet once the Hidden Sound did indeed pose a worry and a threat to the leadersip of Konoha, for it had been led by Orochimaru at the lowest depths of his sordid career, when he was an open enemy of our village, a nihilist seeking complete knowledge and ultimate power for himself alone, who desired to plunge the world into war for the sake of pure, twisted amusement. And the Hidden Sand had been a very strained ally in those days, put hard to it by extensive cuts in their village's budget, and much embittered also by the removal of traditional Wind Country contracts to the Hidden Leaf.

But I digress. I do not write this account as a history lesson for its readers, if any indeed will ever read it. No, the purpose of this letter is as a confession of the one deed in my career for which I feel any genuine guilt, however little. For what I did that now I confess, was not anything sanctioned or commissioned by the village. I was not ordered to do it, and indeed had my superiors known of my plans, I am sure they would have completely forbidden them.

Yet I did it anyway, and I do not regret what I did. My beloved was killed, _murdered_ , leaving me angry and bereft. Never since him have I felt such a love, and never have I been able since the day of his death to bind myself with another, man or woman, no matter how much time might pass. The loss of him left me cold and hard and hollow, and never have I been entirely able to recover from it.

He was murdered only a short while before the invasion, and for a very brief time while that battle still raged I had been able to succor myself with the thought that I might find and kill the one responsible for Hayate's death. But I did not know then who had done it, and before I could learn or take my vengeance, the battle was over, and the invaders retreating. The Lord Third Hokage was dead, and soon the shinobi of Suna would learn that their Lord Fourth was likewise, murdered well ere their plot ever reached its fruition.

It was treachery, as I understand it, a betrayal by Otogakure and assassination of the Yondaime Kazekage under most suspect circumstances. Later it was believed that the Kazekage had, at some point, either refused to go along with the plot or gotten cold feet and planned to call it off, for which reason he was assassinated and replaced with a double. Hardly before we were even finished counting our dead, Suna had repented of her role in the invasion and brokered peace with the acting leaders, providing such aid as she could in that period.

For a little while after this, I convinced myself that Hayate must have been murdered by an agent of the Hidden Sound, even though the wounds on his body were characteristic of such wind style ninjutsu for which Sunagakure was famed. For that short period I contented myself with thoughts of retribution on Otogakure once our forces had recovered sufficiently to carry out such a stroke of war. But my fantasies were soon dashed when I learned from a friend the name of my Hayate's murderer, whom he had fought with during the battle.

The proofs I was given were enough to convince me of the identity, and so I found myself drowned and bitter with impotent, directionless resentment. For the murderer had without a doubt been one of Suna's top ranking shinobi, no less than Baki of the Veil, who was now beyond lawful revenge with the Hidden Sand once more allying itself to us. And so, for a longer time than I am proud to admit, I despaired of justice and sank myself into my work, numbing my loss with dangerous assignments that demanded all my focus.

Years passed in this way, one mission after another, and more than once I pushed myself to my uttermost limits. I accomplished many worthy feats in the course of my career during that time. Some of my most remarkable deeds as a shinobi were achieved then, when my work was all I had, and I earned considerable respect from my peers. But I also strained my health, and at times I had to be forced to take breaks lest I broke down completely. Even the Lord Sixth—just Kakashi, as I knew him then—had both compliments and criticism for my performance.

But I never broke down entirely, and my services were needed, for those were the days when Akatsuki was starting to make itself known, and much information needed to be gathered about happenings abroad. Once or twice I had the honor to work or make contact with Lord Jiraiya, and despite his lecherous reputation I found him to be a comfort. He was gentlemanly with me; perhaps he saw it in my eyes how dearly I missed Hayate. I perceived him to be something of a romantic, and he had much sage advice for a woman who suffers heartbreak.

Regardless, only a few years after the murder of Hayate, and the apparent removal of his murderer from the reach of lawful vengeance, events began to reach a head. Doubtless many of you remember these happenings, who were old enough to have experienced them, or else have read up on them in school, for several were of most historic importance. There was the abduction of the Lord Fifth Kazekage by Akatsuki, and his rescue by the future Lord Seventh Hokage, and also numerous skirmishes between Konoha and this organization.

There was the second invasion of Konoha in three years, and its near total destruction at the hands of Pain. There was the historic Gokage Summit, first in generations, and the attack on that summit by the surviving remnants of Akatsuki, and the formal declaration of the Fourth Great Ninja War. And then there was the war itself, the most singular turning point in the history of shinobi since the founding of the hidden villages.

It was a bloody thing. Many thousands met their deaths fighting an immense army of barely human clones, or dozens of reanimated legendary shinobi, or Madara Uchiha and the Juubi itself. The casualties were extensive, remarkably so when one considers the incredible brevity of the war. From the first proper engagement of commando forces to the final, almost mythical duel between Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha that tore asunder what we once called the Valley of the End, combat lasted barely three days.

There were many deaths and much confusion. Particularly in the night after the first battle, when the now infamous strategy of the white Zetsu infiltrators was carried out. That was one of the blackest nights in the history of warfare, the most fearful experience for many of those who fought in the war. So perfect was the skill of the infiltrators that they could completely reproduce flesh and chakra, and the one weakness that might have been exploited—lack of extensive personal knowledge about the ninja they impersonated—was handily covered by the intermingling of shinobi from all five great villages throughout the forces.

How could a Kiri ninja tell that a man of Iwa was acting unusually? Or how could a Suna shinobi be expected to have the knowledge to pose such a question to a woman of Kumo as only she would know? This strategy exploited the natural mistrust lingering between the various peoples comprising the alliance, and furthermore was so insidiously subtle as to turn even many of the closest friends against one another. The fear, confusion, and chaos sown by these masterful strokes were so intense that were it not for the intervention of the Lord Seventh, the Shinobi Alliance might have been fatally compromised.

But now I come to the matter of my confession. Perhaps, if you are shrewd, you will have guessed by now what I mean to say. Many good ninja were lost in that night of dread, fine men and women stabbed in the back by what they thought to be comrades. To name even just those I remember of the dead would double the length of this letter. But I need give only one name, for only one name matters to this confession.

Baki.

He was murdered on that night, just one among scores. All records I know of put his death down to the Zetsu infiltrators, and in a sense that is not inaccurate. It was the infiltration that gave me my opportunity. I was in the same battalion as him, and the thought had been growing in my mind from the moment I laid eyes on him. I felt hatred for the man. I wanted to kill him.

It was astonishingly easy. Despite the alarm that had gone up, he let me come close enough to speak. I cannot believe he couldn't see the murder in my eyes. It was so thick in my head, and the blood was roaring in my ears. We were alone, the two of us, out of sight and earshot. I don't remember why we were separate from the rest of the company. Perhaps I'd contrived it myself.

Regardless, what I do remember is telling him the name of my beloved, and the reason for the act I was about to commit.

" _Hayate Gekko_ ," I said to him, handling a kunai. "Does that name mean anything to you?"

My words clearly surprised him. He'd been thinking me a Zetsu impostor, perhaps, since there could have been no mistaking my intent to kill him. He looked at me with his one visible eye and made a strange expression, somehow thoughtful but also... no, I don't know how to describe it. But either way, he said:

"Not to me. Clearly it means something to _you_ , though."

"My name is Yugao Uzuki," I told him, feeling myself grow hot with wrath. "It should have been Yugao Gekko."

His eye showed a touch of comprehension, then.

"Was it in battle?" he asked me.

"Maybe I'd hate you less if it had been," I said to him. "He died in Konoha almost four years ago. _Murdered_."

He understood at last, and his hands fell to his side. I could see the regret on his face.

"So that was his name..." he muttered. "Yes, I remember it now. He had been one of the exam proctors. I'd almost forgotten."

I stepped forward, kunai in hand.

"Have you got anything to say for yourself?" I asked him coldly.

He looked me straight in the eye and gave me a miserable, mirthless smile. I still remember it clearly. I'll remember it on my deathbed, I'm sure.

"I'm sorry," he said.

I lost my temper at those words.

Looking back, I cannot say why it angered me so. My fury in that moment seems horrible to me, now that I think on it in cold blood. Maybe it was indignation at his apology, as if he thought he could erase my pain and my hardship and my loss with a single sentence. Or maybe it was frustration that he responded genuinely, with sympathy and sorrow, and expressed his regret for Hayate's death when for so long I had wallowed in the urge to revenge myself upon him.

Whatever the case, I lunged forward and drove my kunai into his breast. It was a clean job. Even overmastered by hate and rage, I was ANBU, and I knew how to kill quickly and efficiently. I thrust the blade between his ribs, angling it directly for his heart. His death was instant, or as near to such as humanly possible. He barely had time to react to my movements, to defend himself or even look surprised.

But now I wonder if he would have shown surprise even if he'd had the time to do so. He must have seen his death in my face well before the deed was done. He probably knew what I would do before I knew it myself. For all my ruminating and premeditating, it wound up a sudden action done in the heat of anger.

Nonetheless, there is little else for me to say. I've confessed the deed and given such justification as my pride demands. Beyond that, what more can I say? I did not bother to hide the body, or the weapon. To my knowledge, then and now, no one else knew where Baki and I had gone.

That my hands were bloody drew little comment when I returned. We were all bloody, and such was the chaos going through the encampments that my absence was scarcely marked. Baki's body was eventually found, but with the nature of his death being so similar to all the others, it was put down as simply another casualty of the infiltrators.

There was no cause to think otherwise, and no time to investigate if there had been. For all intents and purposes, it was the perfect crime. I was never suspected and never accused. I came home alive, while those who had known Baki mourned him to such a degree as they could among all the numerous dead.

I shouldn't need to explain why I've finally chosen to write this confession. These things happen often enough, guilty consciences gnawing at their masters while the years wear on and thoughts of death and the final judgement of their soul grow ever slowly greater in their minds.

Be content. If any who cared for Baki still survive when this letter is opened, give them my condolences. If all my years of faithful service to the village have not earned me the right of burial beside my beloved when weighed against this sole unlawful deed, then nothing I say here can change your minds, or the minds of those who will judge this matter.

But I am at ease, now that the tale is told. I can go peacefully once my time comes, whether it be to punishment or reward.

Farewell.

* * *

A/N: I don't know, this is just an idea that entered my head one day somewhat recently. I've noted before that Baki, who had never been an especially prominent character, seems to drop completely out of the series after the first arc of Shippuden. Yugao vanishes even earlier (with the exception of an anime-only filler). This is hardly unheard of even in meticulously plotted and revised works, let alone in serialized publications. It is a bit of a shame, still. A meeting between Baki and Yugao during the War Arc could have provided for either some nice drama, or a more direct and relateable example of reconciliation in the face of a common foe.

Admittedly, both are fairly obscure individuals, and Yugao was probably saved from complete anonymity only by a certain striking attractiveness that might have caused her to stick in the minds of some fans (or anime producers), while Baki is less distinctive and developed than Tenten. But this fic came about from a single sudden musing one day not a week ago, and one that came rather out of the blue by all accounts, so abrupt that I might call it divine inspiration if I thought divinity had any particular interest in such wholly trivial matters. The thought was, essentially:

 _"What if Baki disappeared from the series because Yugao murdered him in revenge for Hayate?"_

It was not the most serious thought. Indeed, it was basically a joke to myself, a crackish whim and no more. But then I got the idea of writing a fic based around the idea, and a few days after thinking that I actually started it. Because as fun as smut is, and as much as I might enjoy writing GC and NGD, sometimes I just wanna write a serious, potentially insightful one shot.

Somewhat relatedly, this Saturday will be the tenth anniversary of my first registering on fanfiction dot net. Crazy, huh?

 **Updated:** 6-8-16

 **TTFN and R &R!**

– — ❤


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